Eric Schmidt Petition against Telco's (?!)

Cox Communications has been slowing access or blocking access to Craigslist for over 3 months. Shady.

Dont they also own a ton or two of fibre optic cable?

I forgot the link: http://www.google.com/help/netneutrality.html

Yes it's funny that this comes from an ISP that have been buying lots of dark fibre. Of course Google could just do the exact same thing; provide a "fast lane" -- possibly to Google (approved) content -- but where other telcos must charge their users, Google can probably use this as an extra Ad channel.

That, and of course Google is concerned that it will be content providers that have to pay for access to "the fast lane" and not consumers.

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I'm not totally sure about the law proposal that he's arguing against, but telco's have another interest that is foreign to Google - they would like to be able to prioritize different kinds of content, so that eg. email will get delivered quickly always, even if it means that they have to slow down video transport a bit, and so on.

With Google as an operator of high-bandwith services (video, maps, etc) they are of course in the firing line.

That is, Google is probably the single entity that consumes most bandwith overall if you add all the services and spidering. That they can control and prioritize that traffic internally does not mean that they should have a right to slow down the net for the rest of us.

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And, already today, consumers pay different prices depending on how much bandwith they want.

that provides an example of how Verizon is planning short-stack everyone besides their own TV service.

Google has to see this as a huge threat. to claus's point, it's not inconceivable that one of the reasons they've been buying up dark fiber is to diversify risk against this move by the telcos.

the danger i see is that you have these huge, lumbering giants - AT&T and Verizon are Fortune 50 companies - that have been sucking it as their landline telephone businesses have been slowly dying. they still have two assets - cash reserves and infrastructure. they've missed the boat on so many other opportunities that they're dying to finally cock-block these uppity newcomers like Google, and impose their will on the market. to use AT&T chairman Ed Whitacre's own words

"Why should they be allowed to use my pipes? The Internet can't be free in that sense, because we and the cable companies have made an investment, and for a Google or Yahoo! or Vonage or anybody to expect to use these pipes [for] free is nuts."

which also gives you an idea of how byzantine these huge companies are - because last i checked, AT&T and Yahoo were working together to provide DSL services. weird.

so i think that companies like Google and Microsoft are wise to be making a big noise about this. with all the telcos and cable companies combined, they could unleash a blitzkrieg of lobbying in washington that wouldn't get any publicity, but could very well pass the bill in their favor. Google and the rest have to get this issue out into the public eye to raise an outcry about "greedy telcos". otherwise, using Google Video could feel like the freeway at rush-hour.

Last I checked all the telco's charge for internet access to the end user.

to my understanding, it's not an issue of the consumer being charged more by the ISP. the issue would be ISPs charging other companies that deliver content a premium for faster delivery. in the Verizon example above, they've already set aside 80% of their bandwidth for their own internet TV service. for the remaining 20%, they could put Google Video and YouTube in a bidding war for a larger piece of the pipe, and therefore faster video delivery on their network. the result is a crap user experience for people who adopt products from less-established companies, and increased financial strain on those companies, increased barriers to innovation, etc. no fun.

Once you accept a new form of tax at a decent rate, fifty years later it will have increased several fold over, especially if doing so benefits those in power.

The Internet has allowed knowledge to proliferate in the most distributed and widespread form ever achieved by humankind throughout our vast history of civilization boom and bust. All other forms of mass communication are totally nonymous (opposite of anonymous), extremely expensive, and thoroughly thought regulated. It is the only medium where people can publish things for virtually free, unless you count local paper flyers a "mass form of communication."

The elites are thoroughly horrified at ideas that are being shown as plausible – regardless of 300 years of nay-saying and demonizing – modes of communication our Hippy parents simply could not fathom. While the Internet is mostly Server and Client (much like Lord and Servent), a new form of human dialetic has arisen just a few years before the current millennium: disruption-tolerent, distributed, very low cost of ownership, massively parallel systems of information sharing that are for the most part so indestructible that the might of the fascist MPAA, RIAA and the U.S. Corp in general have not made a dent in the over-all movement despite over a decade of fighting, legislating and criminalizing the largest portion of civilization ever (file pirates dwarf illicit narco addicts).

A tiered Internet is a means to destroy the Internet. They say "faster for those that pay" but that really means "status quo", every thing else will be *arbitrarily* limited to dialup speeds or worse. And once they take this 'right' I guess then they'll decide they can likewise edit (censor) the information en route as well.

The question remains: Could Hitler have come to power as thoroughly as he did and could the Nazis have orchestrated such widespread slaughters in an age with the Internet? I believe the answer to be no, and so does George Bush. Let's keep the Internet free for the public and don't fall for the devil's bargain of TV over IP when it means giving up your right to be heard.

It's not just your future; it's humanity's. Save the last unregulated and free-to-publish mass media we have left. (This is our tea tax)

Today the Internet is an information highway where anybody can advertise– no matter how large or small, how traditional or unconventional – has equal access. But the SEARCH ENGINE PROVIDERS LIKE GOOGLE, who control almost all Internet ADVERTISING, want the power to choose who gets access to high-speed lanes and whose content gets seen first and fastest. They want to build a two-tiered system and block the on-ramps for those who can't pay ENOUGH

I should be able to advertise for MORTGAGE at .05 per click

George Ou has written a very interesting piece of commentary on this issue, and quite in depth too, clearing up a few misunderstandings: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=243

looks as the house of representitive voted overwhelmingly for big telecom corps.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/09/washington/09telecom.html?_r=1&oref=rss

There's one word that worries me there: "lawful"!

I agree with hopeseekr's perspective on this. While Google Greed (the public company) may be as bad as the cable co's and the telcos, why have another tier of greed?

To provide evidence of the "One cent to Ten Dollars" suggestion, I have a quote from an article entitled: "Lehman: Verizon may want to rethink FTTP" which says: "Verizon's FTTP initiative, which has now passed more than 3 million homes and businesses in 16 states, cost the company $1 billion in free cash flow in 2005, Bath said in the note. That cost could double this year, he said, draining another $1 billion to $2 billion per year through 2010. AT&T's investment in FTTN (Fiber-To-The-Node), meanwhile, is "smaller and more concentrated," Bath wrote, perhaps totaling $6 billion and ending in 2008, when it could begin to generate free cash flow."
http://telephonyonline.com/fttp/news/lehman_verizon_fttp_010406/

Bretton Jones wrote an article in Search Engine Guide entitled "Net Neutrality - Why Every SEO & Small Business Should Care". I agree with everything Bretton Jones said in the article, especially the part that says how SEO's would be affected if the telcos win.
I hope everyone in the Search Marketing Industry realizes the ramifications of the telcos getting their way on this. Verizon is spending big bucks on Fiber To The Premise (FTTP), aka FiOS, and they are going to want to make as much profit as they can, anyway they can, in my opinion.
http://www.searchengineguide.com/articles/2006/0519_rc1.html

I don't see any other outcome except a huge step backwards to a grass-roots point to point wireless network, which enables innovation at the fringe (once again) and breaks up the commercial value of those government-sponsored monopolies. It could also be done via a shadow internet using encryption (to use that juicy bandwidth - yum) but it won't.

Call me cynical, but I call the current adoption of broadband and VoIP a dead cat bounce for progress. Korea has it right this time.